Full Text: Wayne LaPerre’s Speech to the NRA Membership

Good morning! We meet today amid swirling reports of a growing government scandal.  Most of the major media have ignored news that our federal government sanctioned the running of illegal guns into Mexico.  Leaks from within ATF and congressional committees are building, and should be investigated by every news organization in America.  We deserve to know the truth about this scandal.  [Editor’s note: This document is in its original form, “applause” breaks may not correspond to actual applause.]

We love this country.  We respect its leaders.  Respect requires truth, and the straightforward, simple truth is this:

When it comes to the Obama administration … We … HAVE … HAD IT!

[wait for applause to completely end]

We’ve had it with Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton and the rest of the administration … and, Lord knows, Americans have sure had it with the arrogant, sanctimonious, gun-hating liars who call themselves the national news media!

[applause]

We respect and admire our law enforcement officers, and that includes dedicated field officers who work under difficult conditions.

But there’s a big difference between good field agents and their bureaucratic, politicking bosses at ATF headquarters in Washington.

And when it comes to those scheming bureaucrats in Washington … gun owners have about had it up to here!

[applause]

Our rights have been attacked before.  The political elites and the media have often conspired to shame and blame American gun owners for violent crime.  Together, we have fought with pride and defeated those threats.

But we’ve never witnessed anything like the rotten level of corruption, conspiracy and cover-up confronting us today.  All because they hate Americans and our rights more than they care about the lives of innocent people.

I’ll say that again.  Our government has been willing to let people die … just to advance their assault on the Second Amendment.

Our southern border proves it.

When ATF officials ORDER lawful gun dealers to make illegal sales … that’s corrupt.

When ATF authorizes and watches thousands of guns walk across the border to fall into the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels … that’s not just bizarre law enforcement.  That’s government-sanctioned gunrunning!

When the administration stonewalls congressional investigations … that’s a conspiracy to cover up the truth.

When almost every reporter in America ignores the story, it doesn’t just prove the media is biased.  It proves they’re cowards.

When Janet Napolitano declares that the Mexican border is safe … that’s dishonest.

When Obama and Holder and Clinton blame American gun owners for Mexican drug crime – even as our own government is running guns south – that is politics at its most cynical and despicable.

Operation Fast and Furious may have gotten one, and perhaps two, federal agents killed … and who knows how many other innocent victims have been murdered with the illegal guns our own government allowed into Mexico … all to advance a political agenda.

Over and over again, Americans heard the president, the attorney general, the secretary of state, and members of Congress … claim that Mexico’s violent crime was the result of American firearms flowing south of the border.

They blamed our rights, even as they allowed illegal straw purchasers to walk free … right across the border.

They engaged in a massive gunrunning operation – sponsored by our own American tax dollars.

And these schemers have the gall to say it’s our fault?  That the Second Amendment is to blame?  Give me a break!

[applause]

Eric Holder said he didn’t know about the operation.  He’s the U.S. attorney general.  He’s supposed to be in charge, and he didn’t know?

Who’s minding the store over at the Justice Department?  Because if Holder didn’t know … Holder’s got to go!

[applause]

I call on President Obama to order ATF and Justice Department officials to testify before Congress and fully disclose every detail of their insidious operation.

Mr. President, it’s time to come clean.  Stop the stonewalling and stop the lying!

[applause]

Because the lying is getting people killed … every single day.

The Justice Department called Mexico’s drug cartels the “biggest organized crime threat to the United States.”  Over a million gang members are now active in every state in the U.S. and cartels are bringing drugs, murder, torture and mayhem to our neighborhoods.

The administration doesn’t care.  While calling for more gun laws, they’ve done nothing to crack down on the border … and everything to make it worse.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, recently told Americans that the border was safe.

Well, Janet … you must have been thinking about our friends in Canada … because if you were talking about the Mexican border … you’re either clueless or dishonest.

I went to our southern border.  In fact, I’ve been to the border more than the president, in just the last month.  Despite what Janet says, the border is anything but safe.  It’s white hot … and chilling.  Take a look:

[roll WLP border video]

At our southern border, government has failed and endangered us … just as government has failed and endangered us from violent crime all over this country.

They … don’t … care.

They care about the sensational events that capture national attention and drive their agenda … like Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and Tucson.

The media wastes no time in turning deranged monsters into celebrities … even though that’s the last thing the media should do.  It creates a madman hero for every potential crazy copycat out there.  It’s sick.  It’s wrong.  And the media ought to be ashamed!

[applause]

What the media won’t admit is that, in each of those tragedies, the mass killers all had the same decisive advantage:

Government Gun-Free Zones and anti-self defense laws that protected the safety of no one except the killers … and condemned the victims to death without so much as a prayer.

That’s right. Our own policies gave more protection to the killers than to the innocent.

Government Gun-Free Zones have become the hunting ground of evil, deranged monsters.

But NBC and the New York Times won’t admit that truth.

The media and political elites want us to believe that if we just pass another law or two, we’ll all be safer.

But it’s a lie.  If we could legislate evil out of people’s hearts, we would have done it long ago.

And when they use tragedy to push for banning this firearm or that magazine … or to shut down lawful gun shows … it’s as big a fraud as all the other lies they’ve told before.

Their laws don’t work, their lies don’t ring true, and the only thing we know for certain is that government has failed.

Government has failed us with our money and our financial institutions.  It has failed in running our post offices and trains.  It has failed in enforcing our immigration laws, our drug laws, and our laws against violent criminals with guns.

They can’t even pass a budget … let alone keep an air traffic controller awake at night!

When it comes to protecting us from the mayhem of violent madmen, government is an abject failure.

Worse … by its lies and laws and lack of enforcement, government policies are getting us killed … and making us prisoners in a society of violence.

By the time I finish this speech, two Americans will be slain … six women will be forcibly raped … 27 of us will be robbed and 50 more will be beaten.

More than 25,000 violent crimes are committed every week, according to the FBI.

During a typical week:

300 Americans are murdered.

200 of us are killed by more than 27,000 drunk drivers.

7,800 of us are robbed.

15,000 of our neighbors are violently assaulted.

1,700 American women and girls are raped.

That’s just one week!

That is the harsh reality … the very real danger … we all face every day.

But the media don’t care.  Everyday victims aren’t celebrities.  They don’t draw ratings and sponsors.

The political elites don’t care.  Everyday victims don’t help drive a political agenda.

Everyday victims … murdered, beaten, robbed and raped every day … are all too commonly ignored and too quickly forgotten.

The politicians and the media systematically deny and cover up the reality of just how dangerous daily life can be for Americans.

Like the daily life of Collette, a girl from a small town in the Midwest … the victim of a brutal predator, recently freed on parole.  She was home in her apartment, getting ready to go out, when she heard a knock on her door.  She thought it was a friend.  It wasn’t.  It was the beginning of four hours of hell.  Please watch:

[Collette video]

Government failed that woman … just like it failed Joe.  On a cold morning this past February, Joe was on a New York subway, headed for work … when he was attacked by a deranged monster that had already killed four other innocent victims.  Joe is just an everyday guy, a dad, commuting to his job … who, for no sane reason, became the unsuspecting target of a slasher.  Please watch:

[Joe video]

Government could not protect Joe, just an ordinary American going to work.  Government failed him and Collette, two Americans just like any one of us – a woman in her apartment … a husband, a father on his way to work.

Their violent reality is the reality every American faces every single day.

A reality this Dallas woman never imagined … until two weeks ago.  Please watch:

[roll Dallas video of violent purse snatching]

That woman is every one of us.  She represents any of the daughters and wives in this room and throughout this country.

It is sickening, the way these predators target women … cowards lurking in the shadows in search of prey.  There’s only one real solution to such cowardice … a solution that would save lives and drastically cut violent crime.

Arm women.

Confront the cowardly predators head on.  Arm America’s women!

Every American wife and mother and daughter … every law-abiding adult woman … should be trained, armed and encouraged to carry a firearm for personal protection.

Every elected official who cares about violent crime should hold a press conference tomorrow morning … and announce his or her full-throated support for the arming of America’s women.

Any official in opposition … any politician who whines about another idiotic gun law … proves him or herself to be just another elitist snob who doesn’t really give a damn about innocent victims … and doesn’t really care about reducing violent crime.

Arm America’s women.

Save them from the animals that roam our land, picking them off one by one.  Empower the daughters and mothers and wives we cherish to fight for their lives!

[applause]

Political exploitation of tragedy is corruption.

And their call for more gun control … is the siren’s song of hypocrites!

Because politicians don’t really hate guns.  They just hate ours … our guns and our rights.  For them, gun control means THEY control us!

The elites care about their money, so banks are surrounded by armed guards.

American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses – even sports stadiums – are all protected by armed security.

Even Mayor Bloomberg benefits from armed security … members of Congress are guarded by armed Capitol Police … and the president is protected by the armed secret service.

Celebrities and the wealthy – including members of the news media – are protected by armed guards.

Do we care less about our homes, our kids and our schools?  Are they really less worthy of a full measure of armed protection?

Americans have had just about enough of government failure … and government hypocrisy!

It’s time for a change, and I mean a real change.

Government can’t protect us.  But it can, and has, endangered us … by restricting our freedom to protect ourselves.

It’s time to acknowledge what we know in our hearts to be true – that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.

The presence of a firearm in the hands of a good person makes us all safer.  It’s just that simple … and just that true.

So no more.  No more lies and laws and corruption and government failure.  No more!

At the scene of the crime, there’s only the criminal and the victim.  The police, though well intentioned, always come later … and the victim is always forgotten.  It’s time the victims got a fighting chance.

I have a right to protect myself … so do you … and so does every single law-abiding citizen of this great country.  I won’t give up my right to exercise that freedom … not one single inch!

We have a right to be safe … a God-given right to ensure our own security and the security of our friends and families.

Every American deserves that right.  It is our right and our time to demand that members of Congress to honor that right and immediately enact national Right-to-Carry reciprocity!

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has never been more relevant than it is today.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

The Founding Fathers had it right from the beginning.  Our security is in our own hands, ensured by the bearing of arms in the hands of good people all across this country.

The safety of our homes and neighborhoods … of our kids’ schools … of the people we love most … is in our own hands.

Government has failed.

As citizens, we have been abandoned … left to face personal danger, alone, each and every day.

We may be alone … but we breathe the same free air as our Founding Fathers … empowered by the Second Amendment to live secure and free.

Our liberty lives in the Second Amendment, the fundamental right that separates us from all other nations on Earth.  That freedom makes America better than other countries.  It makes us stronger.  And our Second Amendment ensures that Americans are more free than anybody else in the world.

The duty of our forefathers now rests with us, to defend and preserve our freedom … and we must answer that call with all of our might.

Will we fight to preserve our liberty?

Will we fight to keep our nation strong and safe and free?

Will we fight and prevail against the enemies of freedom?

Our promise to America is that there will always be a Second Amendment, and that the Second Amendment will always be the people’s first freedom.

We will fight to defend that freedom.

We will fight for the rights of all Americans to live free!

We will fight and we will prevail!

We will prevail because we must!

We will prevail because, by God, WE ARE THE NRA!

Thank you!  Keep fighting for freedom every day!